Image via: https://www.hallmarkchannel.com/welcome-to-valentine
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Hiya friends!!]ROAD TRIP ROMANCE TIME! Yay! Here’s a quick recap and my two cents 😉
Quick Recap
Olivia is a down on her luck artist who is trying to find a way back to her hometown Valentine, Nebraska for a big yearly parade, and her friend needs to go to Chicago for a job. Luckily, George (her friend’s cousin) needs to transport a car to from New York to LA and can drive past her hometown on his way. So, they all make an agreement to travel together.
My Two Cents
I love road trip romance movies! There’s so many Christmas ones. Like A Christmas Detour, Road Trip Romance, Cross Country Christmas, and I’m sure many more. When I found out there was going to be a Valentine’s road trip romance, I was pretty excited. Welcome to Valentine doesn’t trump the Christmas road trip movies, but it’s an okay runner up.
Why just okay? Well…I really enjoyed the first half of the movie. The opening scene at the gallery and spilling the soup on the gallery owner were fantastic. It had my romcom heart giggling and laughing like a school girl with a crush. I even enjoyed the scenes leading up to getting on the road and the rules of riding in Big Red.
Then I was a little let down. I was hoping for some fun roadside stories or events. But there weren’t any. We went straight to the Chicago drop off and almost immediately onto Valentine.
Not the end of the world, because Valentine is a super cute small town with all the wonderful traditions and love you would expect for a town with the name Valentine. I almost expected someone to have a catch phrase like, “That’s Valentine for ya.” I suppose they kinda did with “Hiya!”
Then the second half of the movie came along and I tuned out. I’m not sure why, but I completely lost interest. It was cute watching George develop relationships within the town and Olivia and her sister prepare for the parade. But I think things just started moving too slow for me.
Jeff didn’t care for it either. He came in shortly after Olivia and George landed in Valentine and he zoned out too. He enjoyed Pearl in Paradise earlier today a lot more. Honestly, so did I.
If you go into this movie with low or no expectations and you enjoy cute romcoms with small towns, then this will probably be a good fit. I think my expectations were a bit too high for it.
Give it a shot and let me know what you thought! Leave a comment!
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The part of Olivia was so overplayed it reminded me of a 3rd grader acting a first part in a Christmas play. She was a black cloud over the other actors.